MELBOURNE public transport passengers are now stuck with myki, the new ticketing system which can only be described as disastrous.

Its defenders say the new system works for most passengers, most of the time. But so did the old system. If myki works just about as well as Metcard did across the whole network, then at best we've just replaced one functional system with another. ''If it ain't broke, don't fix it'', goes the old adage. Or at least, don't fix it for one-and-a-half billion dollars.

Nobody would pretend Metcard didn't have its issues. The grounds for a new ticketing system were there, if it was likely to: (1) allow passengers to use $5, $10 and $20 notes on trams; and (2) cut down on fare evasion.

It is unknown just how many people have been fined after boarding a tram holding a $10 note, only to discover that a $10 note - legal tender everywhere else in Australia - didn't buy a tram ticket. That outrageous situation existed because of a flaw in the privatisation contract signed by the Kennett government in 1994, which replaced tram conductors with automatic ticket machines.

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Far from solving this problem, myki makes it worse. Now you can't use notes or coins to buy a ticket on a tram. Instead, you'll need to be organised well in advance. In practice, this will mean ducking into the nearest chemist to load your card up with ''myki money''.

The one potentially winning feature of the myki system - its ''smart card'' technology - should have meant this wasn't a problem, at least for people with smartphones. Picture this myki utopia: you leap onto a tram just before it pulls away from the stop and then realise you have no money on your myki card, so you simply whip out your phone, log on to the myki website and transfer credit on to the card, before touching on before the tram has even reached the next stop.

Unfortunately, myki cards aren't that ''smart''. When you transfer funds into your card via the internet, you need to wait up to three days for those funds to be available. Three days! So, we now have to be either super-organised and think three days ahead, or we'll have to incorporate the time it will take to find a ''recharge location'' into our estimated travel time.

The best systems are genuinely user-friendly, in that they bend themselves to the way people behave so they appear seamless and instinctive. Think Google web searches, or voting above-the-line on Senate ballot papers. The worst systems seek to have users change their behaviour to suit the system. Myki tries to force people to have their fare organised three days in advance to catch a tram. That just isn't how people use public transport.

Furthermore, there's no evidence that myki reduces fare evasion. In fact, it makes fare evasion easier, by opening up its possibility on buses.

If myki's offensiveness was limited to its inability to address the existing issues with Metcard, it would be bad enough. But myki's offensiveness goes further, by introducing new problems.

As well as working seamlessly for users of trams, trains and buses, any public transport system must also cater for two groups of people with special needs: tourists and disadvantaged people. The problems for tourists are obvious. A visitor staying in Melbourne for three days will be forced to buy a $6 myki card on top of their fare, despite the card being entirely useless once they leave.

The problems for disadvantaged users are also magnified. Until now, charities, community legal centres and other non-government organisations which provide services to people who are homeless or on extremely low incomes simply provided clients with daily Metcard tickets where the need arose. Now, they are faced with the prospect of providing a $6 myki card, plus fare, to each client for each journey.

As it turns out, Melbourne is now the world's only major city without a short-term ticketing option for public transport.

Perhaps the biggest problem with the myki system, however, is that users will find it almost impossible to keep track of the fares it automatically calculates when users ''touch on'' and ''touch off''. But when they ''touch off'', users are not told the amount myki is taking out of their account. They are only given the balance remaining on their account.

Anybody who has bothered to read the myki ''terms of use'' and the hefty myki ''fares and ticketing manual'' will know that calculating fares is so complex that users have little option other than to trust that myki will deduct the correct amount every time. Indeed, myki demands an enormous amount of trust from its users.

But in its first 18 months of operation, myki has breached that trust numerous times. Reports of topped-up money not appearing in accounts, or disappearing, are regular, as are reports of passengers being charged incorrect amounts.

Metcards allowed passengers to track their public transport usage and costs via printouts on the tickets themselves. With myki, passengers are at the mercy of a large, automated and anonymous system which, like any computer system, cannot guarantee against glitches. A myki glitch will earn users a $207 fine to expiate a strict-liability offence. Those hoping to contest myki ticket infringements find themselves arguing against a computer printout in court.

Russell Marks is a solicitor with the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service and an honorary research associate in the school of social sciences at La Trobe University.

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